Beauty Box Buys - July 2014

This month has seen me finally make a decision about which beauty boxes I'm going to cull. I've decided to cancel Glossybox and Love Me Beauty, which means I'm left with Birchbox and You Beauty Discovery. I'm also planning on getting more Memeboxes in future!

Glossybox 

My two favourite items from this box had to be the Mary Kay mascara and the Bellapierre lipstick. Whilst I would have preferred the red lipstick, the pink suits me really well and I really like the formula! I also love that it's quite a high end product compared to what we normally receive in Glossyboxes, retailing at £20 here. The mascara was a real surprise, as I expected it to not be great quality. Having tried it though, I really like it. It really lengthens and adds definition to my lashes, and it's another high end product! You can find it here for £16.

Birchbox 

Birchbox had some great brands this month, but my two favourites were the Whish body lotion and the Balance Me Eye Cream. The Whish body lotion was another surprise for me, as I'd expected to hate it! Lavender is really not my kind of thing but it is drowned out by the other gorgeous ingredients included in this lotion. It sinks into my skin much quicker than your average body lotion, and leaves a lovely scent behind. The only UK stockist for Whish at the moment seems to be the Birchbox shop, but having a peek at their US website has me drooling over the different flavours available! I'd love to try the blueberry one! You can find it here for $24. The Wonder Eye Cream from Balance Me has done wonders for my puffy eyes! It's meant to work really well for fine lines around the eyes as well but I don't really have nay of those (yet!) so I can't comment on how well it deals with those, but it's certainly a nice refreshing eye cream to use in the morning before I put the rest of my make up on. You can find it here for £20.

You Beauty Discovery 

This month's YBD was a bit odd, what with the men's shaving cream. I went for the L'occitane shampoo and conditioner but I found that they made my hair quite greasy. My other pick for this month was the Miss Manga mascara from L'oreal. Whilst I haven't been blown away by it, I still think it's a really nice daytime mascara. You can find it here for £8.99.

Love Me Beauty 

Clearly mascara has been a theme for this month's boxes! This So Susan mascara is unlike any of the other mascaras I own. The wand has a very small brush which means that I can nab the tiny lashes at the corner of my eye, whilst also providing a decent coverage. I also really like the cute tube with the hummingbird design, it's adorable! It's here for £14.95. I also really love the Ofra eyeshadow from this month's box. It's a lovely soft pressed shadow and you should know by now how much I love a shimmery eye! I can't seem to find a UK stockist for these but they retail for $15. 

What do you think to my beauty box picks for July? Would you buy any of these products?

Love Me Beauty - July 2014

Love Me Beauty are obviously taking steps to try and improve after thier recent boxes, but unfortunately I feel that the July box is still a bit disappointing, which has prompted me to cancel my subscription.

Twenty bags of tea! I know that not everyone doesn't like tea, but for the people out there like me who have no use for it whatsoever, it's a bit disappointing to see one of the main items in the box be tea. I can rehome it so it won't be going to waste, but still a disappointing start.

So Susan is one of those brands I'm a bit 'meh' about. The contouring kit that I received from them in the June Glossybox felt very cheap, but I really like the look of this mascara. The packaging is adorable and the wand seems fairly sturdy.

But, then we get onto the eyebrow kit. Back to the same cheap feeling packaging and useless tiny brush. This will be rehomed as I'm pretty sure both of the shades included are too dark for me.

Ofra isn't a brand I've heard of, and we received two products from them in this month's box too. I went for the box option that contained the lip gloss but I won't be using it. It's a very bright girly pink that I'm sure some people will love but it's just not really my sort of thing.

I much prefer this product from Ofra, this eyeshadow is absolutely gorgeous and the packaging is brilliant. The eyeshadow pops up to reveal a mirror concealed underneath. Very cute, and the shade itself is a gorgeous shimmery gold.

Finally we have this sample of the Lashem eyelash and brow serum. This is supposed to enhance the growth of your lashes and brows, but I'm already lucky enough to have quite long lashes, and don't really fancy overgrown eyebrows.

Overall, some items I really like, and some that I really don't. I used to really enjoy Love Me Beauty and get really excited when it was time to pick out my box, but the quality of the products included has gone downhill and I'm just not as impressed with the boxes as I used to be. I'm sure lots of people will have loved this month's box and I'm sorry for this to be such a whingy post! I'll still keep an eye on the boutique to see what comes out and if there's a particular box that I really like the look of then I might resubscribe, but for now I'm sticking with Birchbox!

What did you think to the July Love Me Beauty box?

Glossybox - June 2014

After a bit of a disappointing start to my 3 month subscription to Glossybox, I was hoping that the June box would be an improvement! Unfortunately, I'm still not impressed with the selection I've received.

One of the things I was most excited about this month was the option to receive a So Susan product, and I was hoping I would get the blusher! I actually received the concealer quad which can also be used for contouring. I don't really use concealer and contouring is way out of my league beauty wise, so this will be rehomed. 

I also received this Novex hair cream. I'm not really sure what this is meant to be used for, I think it might just be an extra conditioning treatment but it's not something I will use. The majority of the writing on the packaging isn't in English either which doesn't really help!

The other item in this month's box that I'm pretty disappointed with is this perfume from Roger and Gallet. Perfume is a very personal thing so I think it's always a bit risky sending out a sample this big in a beauty box. This is way too floral for me and I really don't like it. Hopefully someone I know will want it!

Bad stuff aside, I was pretty pleased to see Nail Girls in the box. I would have preferred a coloured polish but I don't actually own any base coats so I'm itching to give this a try. I think this is meant to be a base and top coat, as well as a nail strengthener so it's a pretty good multi-tasker!

The final item in this month's box is this eyeshadow brush from Teeez. I don't have many brushes so new ones are always welcome. I'm really excited to try out some different looks with this!

Overall, only 2 out of the 5 products in this month's box will be kept. The rest will be given away to whoever wants them. Looking at this month's Birchbox, Glossybox just doesn't compare in terms of quality. There might have been smaller samples in Birchbox, but at least they're all items I will actually use. 

What did you think of this month's Glossybox?

Special Edition Christmas Glossybox

I wasn't really sure about getting this box after Glossybox revealed what would be in it. I'm still not 100% sure that I shouldn't have just saved my pennies to be honest!

The box is beautifully presented. I love the glamorous black and gold design, and the pretty Glossybox ribbon!

 

I'm going to start with my least favourite item and work my way up, so I'll start with the Be a Bombshell bronzer in Tanorexic. That sentence says it all really. This is listed as a blusher on the card, which is disappointing. I'd have much preferred a blusher. Also, is it just me, or is it slightly insensitive to name a bronzer 'Tanorexic'? This will probably be binned. I don't know anyone that would use it, and I certainly won't be. This is full size, and is worth £9.95

 

Next up is the Absolute! perfume stick. This is a very strong floral scent and I'm pretty sure this is going to end up in a present for my grandmother! Not my sort of thing at all. This is worth £9.50.

I received the EuPhidra lip gloss in a very sheer looking shade. It's got quite a bit of glitter to it though, which I didn't manage to pick up very well in the pictures unfortunately. I like the scent too, it's quite a strong vanilla. This is full-size and worth £11.90.

I received the Butter London nail lacquer in Tee Total. I'm not really impressed by the shade to be honest. It's just a very plain chocolate brown, not something I'd have normally picked for myself and not a colour I would associate with Christmas. Here I've applied two coats, and it's still quite streaky. This is full-size and worth £12.

Lovely bit of Christmas tree bokeh going on here :)

I also got the Philip B African Shea Butter shampoo. I'm quite excited to try this out as shampoo is a hair product that I won't just put on a shelf and forget about. It doesn't seem to have a particularly powerful scent, but I have a slight cold so my nose is a bit bunged up haha! 

 

Finally, we have the So Susan Luminizer. I really like this, it's very shimmery and will look gorgeous on the skin. I've swatched it on my hand and a little really does go a long way, which is good as my sample seems to be more or less empty. This is full-size and is worth £25.

I had a bit of a job capturing the shimmer but you can sort of see it.

Well as I've written this, I've sort of talked myself into disliking the box more than I originally thought I did! The box just doesn't really feel like a particularly Christmassy box to me, and to have 'full-size' samples that are pretty much empty is a bit of a swizz. I'm hoping that the standard December box is a little bit more impressive, and I'm not sure that I'll be bothering with any more of the limited edition boxes. After December's box, I should have enough Glossydots for a free January box. Depending on what that's like, I might very well cancel and sign up with either Birchbox or Love Me Beauty. People seem to be a lot more satisfied with those!